


Fin and Fire

by Capucine



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Abduction, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Drama, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Zoo, merfolk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-01-06 12:18:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12211146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capucine/pseuds/Capucine
Summary: Bruce Wayne just wants to discover the mysteries of the merfolk, and to that end, needs to bring at least one to the zoo to study.Unfortunately, the merfolk don't take well to kidnappings.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to just stick with their names, so I apologize if it seems jarring for merfolk to have human names. :P

The thing about merfolk was that they were notoriously difficult to catch. There was a reason there was an air of myth about them, and there was a reason that catching one was seemingly one in a million.

There were multiple reasons it was difficult, however, and Bruce had narrowed it down.

One. They were fast. They could outrace many a speed boat, though not indefinitely. 

Two. They were strong. They’d been known to be able to leave dents in boats and tear right out of many nets and other traps. Their massive tails were more than strong enough to kill a man with one blow.

Three. They had thumbs. They could theoretically unlock or untie or open what they couldn’t smash or tear through.

Four. They blended into the water well, camoflauge being Mother Nature’s gift to her intelligent sea children. They could also slow their heart beat to make themselves hard to spot by other animals, among other adaptations.

And five. They were intelligent, and could figure out how to avoid detection once they realized a new method had been deployed. If it didn’t work perfectly, they’d have a new way to avoid it.

All of these things Bruce had taken into account, and all of these things went into the next trap.

A net stronger than steel, able to withstand thousands of pounds of force. No way to open it within range of it. And a fast mechanism to scoop the merperson straight out of the water, with no chance to warn others or escape.

Along with detection technology, it had worked.

And now, before him, a small merboy thrashed in the net, a high-pitched noise emitting from it. He would characterize it as a keen, several of the bluish-green fingers slipped between the netting and gripping it tightly.

It looked up at him with alien blue eyes, unable to thrash enough to strike anyone.

Bruce nodded to the workers. “Get him shipped out. We don’t know how long it will be before he needs water.”

Any merfolk caught hadn’t lasted long in captivity, but Bruce intended to be the one to change that. If they could find out what the merfolk were and how they functioned while alive, there were so many things they could find out.

Like how to avoid their homes with their operations, or at the very least, so they could know what they were dealing with.

The merboy keened louder as the net was lifted, struggling against it. 

Bruce promised him, though silently, that he wouldn’t end up like one of the several dried husks in the museums. This merboy would live long and healthy if Bruce could help it.

–

The scream for help was one that was hard to not follow.

But Dick knew enough to know that he couldn’t get up and out there in any reasonable amount of time, even as his pulse hammered in his throat. 

The _thing_ that snatched him up like a giant pelican was horrifying, and Dick didn’t honestly know if Tim would be eaten long before he got there. It was likely that it was the surface dwellers, the ones that couldn’t breathe under the water, much like some birds.

The nasty thought that Jason had told Tim time and again to stay away from the shore, that his curiosity would kill him someday, sent a tremor through Dick’s body. 

Because for once, it wasn’t Tim who decided to go out here. It was Dick. He’d suggested that Tim join him to pick up some crabs and other shore creatures for dinner; they had their crops and the like, but he knew Tim enjoyed the brightness of the shore, as well as seeing the strange things that the creatures beyond threw in.

And it had happened so _fast_.

One moment, Tim was swimming out to pick up a crab, and the next, _swoosh_ , he was snatched up and gone.

No time for him to fight, or for Dick to fight to protect him.

The scream had died off fast. Too fast. It was the cry of the young, not one an adult could or did make. It could travel through water and air. 

Dick knew he had to get help, had to figure out what that _thing_ was, and if Tim could be rescued from it. If Tim was gone...then they had to figure out what the thing was, and how to stop it from happening again.

He swam fast in the direction of home. He couldn’t do this alone.

–

Tim was already drying out. He hadn’t had the chance to prepare for going on shore, and it was too bright here. His eyes felt like they were bleeding, and his skin felt cut by the sharp air.

To say he was terrified was an understatement.

He was still in the net when they dumped him into water. The water felt warm and wrong, like it was trapped too.

They weren’t going to let him out of the net, not now, maybe not ever. Maybe they would eat him. He probably looked very tender, and Tim wasn’t certain that surface dwellers only ate the strange sticks and other things that got dropped in near the posts.

He struggled against the net again, but it was like being wrapped in kelp—far stronger kelp.

He’d stopped keening once they’d put him in the big white box. It was useless—Dick couldn’t hear him, couldn’t come help him. No one could. It was on him to get out—and could he? Probably not, but maybe.

It was moving, he realized, as the surface dwellers stayed in the big white box with him and seemed to be making sure that the water didn’t escape and neither did he. 

There wasn’t much to breathe in this water, Tim realized, and that was what he had noticed at first. He could feel his pulse go faster when he wondered if they knew he wouldn’t be able to breathe if they kept him here too long.

He hadn’t had a chance to get ready to go in the air, after all.

But the movement stopped just as his extremities were starting to feel tingly, and then he was being moved into another bunch of water, the light still too bright to do anything but hurt.

He still didn’t know what they wanted, but he was starting to lose his ability to care much as the new sensations got to be too much.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The transition from ocean to tank doesn't go well.

The tank outfitted for the merboy was something that was not cheap, to put it lightly. Bruce had gone to great extremes arguing with the directors to make certain the habitat would be as suitable as possible. It was only so possible to prepare for a creature they knew so little about, but he did everything in his power.

It was big, three sides covered by the concrete walls surrounding it and a top that could be opened quite wide, so that he and his team could easily access it without allowing the merboy to get out easily.

One side was open to the front, a glass wall, so that they could observe him from the side of the tank as well. There were also small cameras that would record him.

Bruce didn’t want to think that was on the chance that he perished quickly, but recordings would be valuable no matter how long he survived.

The merboy was very still by the time they got him to the tank, and at first, it had Bruce afraid he was dead. But as soon as the net was lowered into the tank and released the merboy, he seemed to come back alive, tail moving frantically as he started to swim.

It didn’t occur to Bruce what was about to happen until it did.

–

He was being put back in the water, Tim realized, as his sense seemed to clear. They’d been fuzzy before, the lights and noises and unfamiliar place too much, but he was back in the water.

He could hear them still above him, and he could feel the energy awaken like lightning as he sought a way out.

There were sheer walls, maybe rock, around him, so he couldn’t go that way, and he couldn’t go up, but there was a wide open area to his right, so he put all his might into going that way. It looked strange, but it was the only opening.

He was startled when he was smacked in the head, hurtling backwards a bit. His head rang and he tried to dodge whatever had hit him so fast he hadn’t seen it, and this time got his head and shoulder and entire arm hit. 

Fear gripped him as he blearily looked around and couldn’t see whatever had hit him. He was turning around in dizzy circles as his head throbbed, and he tried to turn towards the opening once again. 

A new net suddenly swooped around him, and he tried to fight it as he was dragged back and away from the opening. He started to cry, unsure what was happening now. His whole head and upper body ached, and he could feel blood seeping from his nose into the water around him.

He wanted to go home. 

–

Bruce could have torn his hair out. They’d stopped the merboy from running into the glass, and he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of this. 

Sharks never did well in tanks; why would he assume merfolk would fare much better? At least, with the same design as fish. Sharks didn’t understand having such short distances to move in; it was why great white sharks had never been successfully kept for long. He should have realized that it might be similar with merfolk.

“Whew. He’s still alive,” one his researchers, Barry Allen, informed him. “That was close, though. If we hadn’t been able to catch him, god only knows how long he would have kept trying that.”

Bruce nodded, and let out a sigh. “Does he seem alert?”

“Eh, not entirely, but he’s clearly conscious,” Barry said, “It looks like he’s bleeding, and our microphones are picking up sounds. He’s making a high-pitched noise almost constantly.”

“He’s likely in distress,” Bruce said, after listening to the sound. He’d made a similar sound on the dock, and it didn’t seem that hard to piece together now. 

He looked in the tank again, seeing the merboy trying to pick apart the net with one arm, tail flailing a bit.

“Have the interns put up some highly patterned paper or something similar on the glass,” Bruce said, “It might be that he doesn’t understand what glass is.”

“We have that problem with the birds around my place,” Barry said with a sigh, and he called two interns to do that.

–

The fact that Dick had come back alone was not lost on Jason. He hadn’t given him a chance to speak before demanding, 

“Where is Tim?”

Dick looked at him with wide eyes, and then looked over at Cass. “They took him. The surface dwellers snapped him out of the sea right in front of me.”

Cass’s dark eyes were wide and horrified.

Jason could feel an anger bubble in him, though he wasn’t certain who to be angry at. “Why did you take him out there?! You could have done it yourself!”

“I didn’t know they’d do that! Tim likes—liked--” Dick seemed torn on how to refer to Tim.

“Is he dead?” Jason demanded, feeling his stomach turn over. “Did they kill him?”

Dick looked ill as well, but this was no time for him to stay quiet. Jason wasn’t about to let him keep the answer to himself. “I...I don’t know. It didn’t sound like they killed him, but...I couldn’t get to them, they were up on the dock, and I didn’t have any time—it was so fast. One second he was there, and the next, he was up with them.”

“But is he dead? What do they want with him?” Jason demanded.

“I said I don’t know!” Dick snapped.

“We have to go up,” Cass said softly. Both of them turned to look at her. 

Jason could feel his stomach turn more uneasy at the prospect. Merfolk didn’t often go up to the surface world; things tended to not go so great, or at least not be worthwhile. They had some idea of what the surface dwellers did, or who they were, but it’d been a long time since anyone had personally gone up.

It also wasn’t a fun transition, from mer to air-breather. And it had to stay that way for several days, so it wasn’t like they could change back immediately if they didn’t like what they found.

But if Tim was still alive…

“They kill merfolk,” Jason found himself spitting out. “Tim won’t be there even if we go up there.”

Cass seemed to concede the point, but said, “We can stop the next time.”

And that was an unbeatable point.

In the end, the three of them made the plan for the next early morning, when the sun wouldn’t have come out all the way, to bring themselves to the shore.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The land is where Tim's at, so that's where they're going.
> 
> Also, Damian is not a big fan of his father's work (at times).

The air was chilly on their skin as they made their way out of the water. It took slow movement, like relaxing a muscle, to switch between breathing through the water and breathing in the air. Cass found it fairly easy, but she knew that Jason and Dick struggled a bit more.

She’d been encouraged to learn this skill to the point that she almost forgot the ocean, once upon a time. It was easy, and the bluish-green tint fell away from her skin with a ripple through her body, making her shudder.

Dick and Jason would join her on shore in a moment, she had no doubt. They didn’t have the same control over it, but they wouldn’t take long.

The beach was sandy, as always, and felt weird between her toes. She could see a large shell just a few inches from her big toe, and she could see the way the sun was just starting to kiss the sky.

Dick showed up next to her, and looked over towards the wooden structure above the water. 

“I bet--” he broke off coughing, having used his lungs and air voice too fast. Only the young could sort of use their water voice in the air, and that was an adaptation that faded with age. When a merperson was old enough, they no longer needed the protection of their pod, at least not in the same way. They were fighting together at that age, not being defended.

Tim had been nearing that age. He was still smaller than them, and far more flexible, but Cass had expected that by the following spring, he would have joined them as an adult member of their pod.

She eased into using her voice, humming a bit.

Jason joined them, glaring around at the rocky land beyond, and the buildings beyond that, much farther away. Cass knew her way to them well enough.

“The—they must have had the thing over there,” Dick finally managed, voice sounding like something sawing on a shell.

Jason growled under his breath.

Cass had to admit, it looked like there was something over there, on top of it. The dock, that was what it was. The thing had wound up metal string or rope, and it had many bends or joints in it. It was bulky and metal.

They had to acquire clothes, though. This was one of the most important things Cass had learned. Land dwellers didn’t notice you as long as you wore clothes; it was like camoflage, in spite of being highly visible.

She spotted what appeared to be a clothesline, the ever useful source of clothing, and gestured towards it.

There were bright, bright orange shorts that fit Jason, and a sky blue t-shirt that fit Dick. There were also an unwet set of shorts that were patterned with black leaf shapes and were dark green; they fit Cass, since they had a stretchy waist. They found another t-shirt that was missing the sleeves and had two jaggedy triangles on it, and then they found fluffy shorts for Dick.

There wasn’t an extra shirt for Jason, but Cass knew that land dwellers were highly uncomfortable with mammary glands on full display, so she wore the shirt they’d found with the triangles and Jason went without a shirt for now.

She was sure they would manage to acquire one.

They set off, Cass’s shorts swishing loudly as she walked. She liked the look of Dick’s shorts better, since he made no noise when he walked.

The object that sat on the dock was big. It was bigger than Jason or Dick were tall. Cass didn’t know how it worked, but she would guess that if it was used to catch Tim, it was strong.

“We should break it,” Jason growled, voice like rolling pebbles.

Cass had to admit she was in favor of the idea.

–

The merboy was behaving less erratically now that they’d papered up the glass. It was a relief to Bruce, and, frankly, to everyone. Bruce could see the difference in his staff, and he figured as long as it seemed like the merboy wasn’t dying or anything similar, they’d let him settle for a bit before they attempted more.

He was swimming around the bottom of the tank, and Bruce could see that Barry was taking detailed notes on how he moved. It was a lot slower movement than before, without the frantic swimming movements.

It was...beautiful, in some ways, even though it looked like the merboy wasn’t really using his right arm. The rippling way his tail moved back and forth, the obvious muscle beneath his bluish-green skin, the way that Bruce got the sense that the merboy could have easily killed any one of them had they met on his terms.

It was no wonder that no one had seen a mermaid and lived out at sea. It was also no wonder that they were so difficult to catch.

The door behind him squeaked open, and he heard tones of disapproval that could only mean one thing.

“Father, did you want me to order ghastly, grease-laden pizza _again_ for dinner or did you have some sort of intention of making sure there’s an actual meal on the table?”

Bruce ignored Barry’s stifled laugh, and turned to his son. “Damian, I’m in the middle of a very sensitive case, and you’re not supposed to come back here without permission! You know there are strict rules--”

“Don’t worry, Father, I would never dream of contaminating the dolphins and their friends with my nasty body,” Damian snarked back.

It was going to be a long weekend.

He swiftly ushered him out of the room before he could spot the merboy; fortunately, the window they had was a bit high, and Damian had clearly been focused on being angry with him. 

“Look, Damian, just wait out here for a half an hour, and I’ll take you out to eat anywhere you want.”

Stubborn silence met him.

“Damian, this is delicate work.”

“Fine.” Damian’s eyes met his, and Bruce was reminded once again of why schools had been such a problem for Damian of late. “One half an hour, and you’ll take me out to eat where I want.”

“Okay. See you in a bit.”

The mumbling sounded suspiciously like, ‘it won’t be a bit’ but Bruce figured he’d better wrap things up for the day sooner rather than later.

–

Tim was tired. He circled the bottom slowly in hopes of avoiding the grabber. He kept a cautious eye on above him, not suspecting anything from the walls all around him.

He’d touched the place there’d once been an opening; it was solid and smooth, though not the same smooth as the rest of the walls. It also seemed...shinier, somehow. And the wall was a lot more colorful, no doubt about that.

Mostly, he was feeling out where he could hide that the grabber couldn’t get him.

He would need to sleep eventually, and without a pod, no one was going to keep watch in turns. It was only him.

He would ordinarily sleep upright, bobbing alongside the others, in a circle that offered both protection and warmth, of sorts. Not many creatures would attack a proper mer pod, and those that did were often not at the level they slept at.

Now, he knew he would have to dig into the sand at the bottom, somehow, and hide himself. It wasn’t impossible to sleep that way, but it wasn’t as comfortable or easy. He would be uncomfortable with the risk of getting sand in his gills, and he wouldn’t like not being at a comfortable angle.

But it was on him to survive here, and he would do until the chance of escape came.

He found a corner that seemed most suitable, with the highest piling of sand, and burrowed in, his skin tint changing just a bit to blend better. He cradled his aching arm to his chest, and let his ringing skull rest as he closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed that! It was fun to write. I hope to get more work done on older stories soon, but getting back into the swing of some of them has been difficult. :P


	4. Chapter 4

Much to Bruce’s chagrin, Damian had chosen an extremely expensive Asian restaurant, and had given a sharp look as if to say, ‘You said wherever I wanted’ when he started to voice concerns about the cost.

And then Damian went on to order several expensive seafood dishes at said restaurant.

He ate them while glaring down at the dead fish and sea creatures like they’d personally offended him, and said nothing to Bruce.

He was in a bad mood. Bruce could hardly blame him, if he thought about it. 

He hadn’t realized that it was actually early morning when Damian had barged in. He’d been so engaged with the merboy and its survival that he’d literally had Damian waiting from the afternoon, when he dropped himself off at home on Friday, to the early morning when his son had shown up.

Now, at about ten in the morning, since it hadn’t taken just a half an hour to make sure his team was able to take care of things without him, they were eating expensive Asian food and they weren’t speaking.

“So,” Bruce said, clearing his throat uncomfortably, “Who let you in the house?”

Damian’s eyes could have bored holes in him. “First off, I made a copy of your key. Secondly, your neighbor has a key, and he let me in this time. He also made me a snack in your kitchen, since apparently Mr. Alfred Pennysworth from next door is more comfortable in your home than you are. Thirdly, I could break in through a window and I have before.”

It was an uncomfortable silence after that, as Damian waited for him to say something and Bruce tried to figure out what to say.

“I apologize, Damian, but my work tonight was very important,” he finally said, unable to really emphasize why this night had been so different and more important than usual. He didn’t want to talk about his find in public.

The death stare he got told him that Damian wasn’t about to accept his apology.

“Damian, my work is how I pay the bills,” Bruce said, “And it’s important to me. We’ve recently made an important breakthrough--”

“If you like your fish so much, maybe you should go back and take it home instead,” Damian snapped, “I’m sure it’s better than having a real, human son who might take away precious time from fucking with fish.”

“Damian! Language!” Bruce said, and that was the wrong thing to say, because Damian shoved the last piece of fish into his mouth and stood abruptly.

“I’ll be in the car—try not to be distracted by the fish in the tank on your way out,” Damian growled, and he stalked out of the restaurant.

Bruce groaned—how on earth could he handle both Damian and such delicate work? He already had a pounding headache, and he needed to go to bed. He’d deal with this once he woke up.

He paid the bill and left a decent tip.

–

Getting the thing to fall off the dock had been harder than Dick had initially suspected it would be. It had metal pieces keeping it solidly on the dock, and so it had taken finding a long piece of metal to pry it up with all their weight on it.

Eventually, however, the thing creaked and groaned and fell into the water, where the surface dwellers couldn’t use it.

Jason had examined the thing thoroughly before they’d done so, and it hadn’t seemed to show any signs of having consumed Tim; if anything consumed him, they took him from it first.

There had been the faint scent of Tim, but nothing after a few steps away.

It still made Dick’s chest hurt. He’d been the one responsible for Tim, and he’d just been snapped up, like pelicans snapped up fish. It was so sudden. And then the cry for help he’d been unable to answer still sounded in his ears sometimes.

“Surface dwellers take what they want,” was what Jason had growled, “And then they kill it.”

Cass had pointed out that they sometimes caged it; that she’d heard of whales regaining members of their pods. Jason pointed out they’d heard of far more whales simply being killed than caged, and it was ridiculous to assume that the exceptional had happened with Tim.

They walked along, seeking some more clues after the bubbles stopped coming up from the thing.

The place was not what Dick would have expected; as the sun came up, he could see many dwellings. They smelled funny, and they were in a wide range of hues. As they got onto the path and away from the beach, the ground grew harder and more unpleasant.

People were also moving about. Most of them were wearing clothes sort of like theirs, though somehow different. Dick couldn’t quite name how, but he did notice that sometimes the people stared at them a bit longer than he would have liked.

“Look,” Cass said, voice softly low. Dick followed her gaze, and saw a building with many pictures in the windows. In one, a person seemed to have been half-consumed by a fish with no face, though she was smiling about it. In another, a man wore shorts like Jason’s and gripped a large, colorful board.

On another, there was a small child grinning and holding two likely dead crabs up near her face.

Dick didn’t know what to make of it, until he saw more clothing hanging in the windows. He looked to Cass and Jason’s state of shirtlessness and their lack of the foot covers that everyone seemed to be wearing.

“Sounds good,” Jason stated, and they turned towards the building.

They swung open the door and walked in.

The place was crammed with many things, but Dick picked out the clothing pretty fast.

An older woman was staring at him suspiciously when he picked up some of the foot coverings, and she said, as he looked at the soft purple things, “Honey, those flip-flops aren’t in your size.”

“Huh?” he said, looking over at the human woman.

“Those are children’s flip-flops,” she stated. “The men’s are in the men’s section. Over there.”

She gestured towards a sea of black, brown, white and green. It gave Dick the sense she didn’t much like him in her space. “Oh. Okay.”

And he walked over there, looking for men flip-flops.

He only just heard the man in the bright blue t-shirt confront Jason as he looked at a gray shirt with a huge crab picture on it.

–

Tim woke up not slowly to the morning light, but abruptly to being caught by the thing.

He immediately began to thrash, as it lifted him out of the water of the tank and away from his sand. His gills stuttered and ached from where the sand had gotten in due to his panic, and his shoulder was jarred painfully.

The humans were making sounds at him, and he tried to cringe away as the net held him securely in place in a white, plastic thing that was only a bit bigger than he was. 

They then stabbed him in the neck, and he started to cry out for help, in spite of knowing how useless it was. Then they stabbed him in his ear, and he really wanted to go home. He wanted to be anywhere but here. 

Then they stabbed him again, in his hip, and he could feel his body slowing down a bit. He felt like his head was filling with bubbles, and found he could only really slowly watch what the humans were doing to him. It was like he wasn’t really there.

They put cold things against his body, and started poking and prodding, shouting things to each other that he couldn’t understand. 

Then they shined lights in his eyes, and tried to stick something in his mouth; he bit at it, but they forced something in that held his mouth open. They tapped something against his teeth, and then they took the thing out.

His jaw ached.

Then he was lifted once again, and placed back in the tank. He expected he would swim as fast as he could, but he sort of languidly drifted from where it let him go instead.

He couldn’t fathom what had just happened, though his confusion was quiet at the moment. He could feel a thing in his neck where they’d stabbed him, and he could feel something sort of flapping in his ear where they’d stabbed him.

He wasn’t sure if he should rip them out yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was fun to update. I hope y'all enjoyed it! 
> 
> Also, yes, Jason is about to get the 'no shoes, no shirt, no service!' treatment.


	5. Chapter 5

Tim had fingered the flap of plastic multiple times, unsure if he should rip it out. He’d already discovered that the other one was buried under his skin, so he could feel his blood pulse around it, but he wasn’t going to get it out without clawing his own skin open.

Furthermore, his jaw _hurt_ , giving him a rather distracting headache. It felt like his gums had been blasted, and now they throbbed. The joint also ached. And his gills ached from the gritty sand that had gone into them, so his whole head area was sort of in a foggy pain.

He really didn’t like that.

He had the sense that they were watching him from somewhere, but it wasn’t apparent from where yet. Also, he was quickly figuring out there was nowhere to hide. The sand and a few plants he recognized were it for objects in the closed in water.

Ignoring the pang of desire for home, he swam in lazy circles, trying to breathe more clearly and therefore think more clearly. What did they want from him?

They probably didn’t want to eat him. They’d kept him alive a bit long for that, seemingly. Unless they were hoping to fatten him, or perhaps breed him? Though it seemed silly to keep him trapped here if that was the goal, and furthermore, he was a bit young to produce offspring, but he couldn’t assume they realized that. That, and he was nearing the age of adulthood, so perhaps they were willing to wait it out. 

He remembered that sometimes, some merfolk would be involved in breeding specific kinds of fish, but it was a rarer practice now than it had once been. The same was true of hunting whales. In general, there was just... _less_ of everything. Tim didn’t remember the times when he was told it had been bountiful everywhere, but he could remember better times than these.

But you couldn’t wall in a fish and expect it to breed and thrive, so Tim decided to throw that idea out. 

So, if not for eating or breeding, was he...a pet? A captive? Bait?

Because if they thought they could use him to catch other merfolk...they weren’t entirely mistaken. Even adults he didn’t know might respond to his distressed calls. 

And that was why he ought to stop making them. Or likely making any sounds.

If he was a captive?

Then he should try to survive until he could escape.

And if he was a pet?

Same story.

They obviously had no desire to communicate, at least with him, so he would remain silent and watching and waiting. 

And for that reason, he would leave the flap alone. For now.

–

“No shoes, no shirt, no service!” the human snapped at Jason, pointing to a picture near the door. His hair was slicked back, both blond and brown, and he was wearing a shark tooth around his neck.

Jason coolly looked to the picture, pretending he understood it. As far as he could tell, it was a picture of a shirt with a circle around it, as well as a line through it. Then he shrugged. “Sorry. I can’t read.”

The man rolled his eyes at him, saying, “And I’m the president. Stop being a smartass.”

“Well,” Jason said, deciding to be patient with this human, “This seems like the place to go for shirts and shoes. Why would there be a rule about not having them to start with?”

“Are you fucking stupid?” the man demanded.

Jason’s jaw twitched. Then he saw, out of the very corner of his eye, Cass casually leaving the place with a hat, a bag, and shoes on, and he understood his role here.

“No, but maybe you are!” he snapped. “Where’s a guy gotta go to get shoes around here? Do you expect me to just fucking walk on—on all that sharp stuff?!”

The human seemed taken aback for a moment, more than distracted. “No shoes, no shirt--”

“Hey, Jay, is everything okay?” Dick asked, bounding up to his side. 

The human stared at Dick’s fluffy shorts for a moment, and looked at them suspiciously. “Why are you dressed like that?”

Dick blinked innocently at the human. “I think the color brings out my eyes.”

“No, I mean—ugh,” the human growled under his breath, as he looked down at Dick’s bare feet. “Just get out. No shoes, no shirt, no service.”

“Do I get half service? I have a shirt,” Dick said, which only prompted a groan that sounded like ‘fucking tourists.’

“Come on, Dick. This guy’d rather see us go without,” Jason sniffed, and he seized Dick’s arm in a not so subtle ‘we’re leaving’ gesture.

“Yeah, fine,” Dick said, managing to look disappointed. They both left without the man trying to stop them.

Cass met them around the corner. “They have things that go beep normally,” she explained, “but I know how to turn them off.”

Jason didn’t ask how she knew that; she’d spent far longer on the surface than any of them, and she hadn’t told them all of what she’d done to survive. In any case, her abilities would make it a lot easier for her to steal clothes than it would be for them.

Dick cheerfully put on bright orange shoes that seemed to hurt Jason’s eyes.

Cass gave Jason a shirt which was a soft green, and then some rope shoes. At least, that was how Jason would describe them, with their long, braided pieces. 

Cass was wearing flip-flops with a weird picture of a small girl on them. She was impossibly sparkly and fluffy looking, and the shoes were light blue. 

“So. We are prepared,” Cass said softly.

“Yeah, what now?” Jason asked.

“Now, we find where the thing, the machine, came from,” Cass said, “And we take vengeance and protect ours.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dick said, mouth twitching a little like he was trying to keep it from trembling. Even though Jason was still inarticulately angry that Tim had been taken on Dick’s watch, he couldn’t help but empathize with the pain he was feeling.

When he got his hands on whatever made the thing, he would destroy it. He’d burn it, this being the land of fire.

Cass felt similarly, he could tell.

“Well? Where to first?”

–

Damian hated the facility. It was so white and stupid, thin lines of blue along the bricks. The inside was even more infuriating; the part that housed a children’s aquarium had cartoon fish and bright colors to keep the miserable brats entertained. The part that was the research facility was clinically light blue, and the people there cared for fish with big, stupid eyes more than anything else.

_Fish._ Damian could understand if it was a dog, or a cat, or literally any animal that one could touch without damaging its skin. One that actually understood when you cared for it, not the alien life forms that were _fish_.

His father would probably prefer the deep sea creatures that looked like furious trash bags to him any day, and it made no sense.

It was then, as he sat on the bench, that said man appeared, seemingly out of breath.

“Damian! You said you’d be in the car!”

“Many people make promises they can’t keep,” Damian said back, not moving from his spot. 

His father groaned, rubbing his eyes. “Damian, I have to go to bed. We need to go home.”

“Why don’t you sleep with your precious fishes?”

His father looked very tired then, and he said, softly, “Damian. I am too exhausted to explain why I was there so late tonight—but trust me, it was important.”

“Of course it is,” Damian snarked.

It was then that his father got a pensive look on his face.

“If I showed you, would you let us go home quietly?”

Damian rolled his eyes. “No. Let’s just go home already.” It was like his father really thought this one, this time, would change his mind. Which was ridiculous; who left their twelve year old son to fend for themselves when they _knew_ they’d be there?

Bruce just sighed, and led the way back to the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am too tired too, Bruce.


	6. Chapter 6

He was still very worried, but it seemed like Cass knew where to search. She’d been on the land more than any of them, and her opinion was that the bigger buildings that didn’t have open windows were most likely to be where the thing came from.

Now they were passing many small buildings, heading too far inland for Dick’s comfort. He could see Jason didn’t like it either, and he seemed to shudder from time to time.

He knew Jason had had bad experiences with fishermen before. He’d been caught in one of their nets when he was still small, an adolescent like Tim was. They’d managed to hack him free, but it almost looked like he wouldn’t make it. He’d been trapped next to a dolphin, and wouldn’t stop waking up with nightmares about the poor creature, who’d suffocated, since it needed air, unlike them.

He was also left with some scarring, though it was far more evident on his tail than his legs.

The humans never sat well with Jason, and Dick couldn’t blame him. 

“These are homes,” Cass explained abruptly, gesturing to the rows. “Might be the wrong place for big buildings.”

Dick had to agree—partially because he’d rather return to closer to the ocean. The sun had gotten hotter, and he wasn’t enjoying it much.

“Hey!”

The voice was loud, and belonged to a blonde human, a girl. 

Cass turned, and said, “Hello.”

The human girl grinned, saying, “Are you guys the new kids? I thought the Brewers didn’t have teenagers!”

“No, we’re not brewers,” Jason responded harshly.

“Wow, okay,” the girl said, eyebrows raising.

“He’s just tired,” Cass explained. “I’m Cassandra; we’re visiting.”

Dick could see Jason’s eyes bug a little as he stared at Cass, but he decided to follow her suit. “And I’m Dick.”

That made the human girl grin a little, as she said, “I’m Stephanie. Steph for short—who’re you visiting? And will you be staying long? There’re like, no other teenagers in this neighborhood, except Barbara but like she’s technically an adult anyway and she’s real busy with college and stuff. You know what I mean?”

“Of course. Stupid college,” Cass responded.

“Well, it’s not really stupid, but it takes up so much time! She’s always like, ‘Sorry, Steph, my brain has died and I still have homework’ so, you know,” Steph sighed. She talked fast. 

“Well, it’s good to meet you!” Dick said cheerily, it suddenly striking him that she really seemed to know people in the area, and would likely know where to find the maker of the thing. Also, she was sort of delightful, for a human.

“You too! You guys going anywhere? Cause I got nothing to do.”

Jason started to speak, surely a protest, but Cass cut him off.

“We’re trying to find a place that likes fish.”

“Likes fish? Like, what, a restaurant? Or do you mean the aquarium? They have a lot of fish there,” Stephanie said. “It’s mostly tourists and little kids who like to go there, though.”

“We’re tourists,” Cass responded.

“Um, okay,” Steph said, and her eyes crinkled a little, like she was suddenly wondering if they were bad people.

“Sorry, Jason loves fish,” Dick put in, “And we weren’t sure how to get there. Do they have tuna?”

It was the only fish he could think of that he’d heard humans reference often.

“They have Dory fish,” Steph shrugged. “You’ll probably like it a lot.”

“Good,” Jason murmured, “I love dory fish.”

“Mkay,” Steph said, “It’s a bit of a hike, but we could take the bus—you guys have bus fare?”

“Yes,” Cass said, rattling her pocket. Dick didn’t know when she’d gotten whatever was in her pocket—he would guess coins. He’d seen enough of them in the ocean and on the dock in corners to know roughly what they were. How to use them, though, was a little less in his experience.

“All right then,” Steph said, and she led them in the general direction of the ocean again.

–

Tim was quiet. He felt exhausted, not sure where or when to sleep. For several hours, he’d simply lazily circled, not wanting to go to sleep; he’d sort of taken micro naps. But at some point, he would be too tired to remain awake, and he knew he would have to sleep.

He still reviled the idea of sleep upright, like he would in a pod. And he was starting to dislike the tag in his ear quite a bit. His neck continued to sting, and he continually felt a small flutter of panic every time he considered that it was some parasitic creature they’d put in there. He couldn’t get to it either way, but it still kept sending shocks of anxiety through his body to help him stay awake.

It might be nice to just curl up and not wake up.

No, he reminded himself, he was waiting for an opportunity. He’d have it, surely.

He’d likely expended a lot of energy in fighting the humans, and now he was hungry. Hungry enough that he’d considered the plants before realizing they were inedible. 

And then he sort of considered the sand.

After that, he finally drifted out of his circling and pressed up against the wall, silently curling up a bit. He wished he could go through it and out into the ocean, though he doubted there was anything but land for a long ways beyond this wall.

It was then that there was the sound of something entering the water, sending adrenaline rushing through his body. He stiffened, hands up and ready to fight it, but the scent carried more than fast enough.

It was meat—dead fish. 

Normally, he’d be less thrilled about food that had clearly been dead for a bit, but this wasn’t normal, and he swam out to it with an energy he hadn’t suspected he had. It tasted terrible, all wrong, but it was fish and it was food.

He ate every last bit.

And then he examined the surface, looking up to see if any more was forthcoming, or if he should look out for the catcher. But nothing happened, and he quickly moved back to the wall, where he somehow felt safer.

He couldn’t sleep, but he felt a bit reinvigorated. He could stay awake a while longer.

–

Bruce slept, desperately needing the rest after being up so long. His pager was next to his bed, and he hadn’t changed out of his clothes, intending to be back as soon as possible.

Damian quietly did his homework and stewed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was pretty fun to write, and I hope y'all enjoyed it! I'm pretty sure I've still got some worldbuilding to do, but that's life.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trio are in the right place at the right time, but don't know it.
> 
> Tim doesn't know they're in the right place at the right time, but is attempting escape.
> 
> And Bruce is too tired to properly deal with all of this.

The aquarium looked all like Jason expected and nothing like it all at once. As they went in, Cass gave the people at the box more of the coins and pieces of flappy paper called money—Jason didn’t often see the pieces of paper, so he wondered where she’d picked it all up.

He didn’t ask, though.

The place had boxes full of fish which Stephanie, their unwitting human guide, called ‘tanks.’

“See? Dory fish!” she said, pointing to blue and yellow fish. 

But so many of the fish were far smaller than your average merfolk, and Jason was concerned these people were not at all who they were looking for. Fortunately, Dick was keeping Stephanie occupied with a steady stream of chatter, asking questions and pointing to various fish.

Jason drifted away from the others, seeking out somewhere that could give them a clue as to where they’d make the thing—or even where they could be keeping Tim. A hope had arisen at the sight of very much alive fish in the boxes. Perhaps it was foolish, but if these humans were indeed intent on putting swimming creatures in boxes, well, Tim was a swimming creature, and Dick hadn’t heard him be killed, right?

He came across much bigger tanks, some with small sharks and others with a couple of dolphins, picking up his hopes further. And then he reached only a door with a red-lit light above it and many red and black signs on the door. 

There had to be more—he’d seen an octopus, sharks, dolphins, and several other large animals of the ocean—Tim would be here among them, in the bigger tanks. If the humans had any sense, anyway. 

The thought struck that perhaps, beyond the door, there were more boxes. If he simply went beyond it, he might find Tim—or at least find the source of the monstrosity that plucked him out of the water like a monster pelican.

He eyed the door, feeling that perhaps he was not meant to go beyond it, but also sure he probably ought to go beyond it.

Stephanie caught up about then, saying, “Yeah, it’s kinda a shame we can’t see what’s in the labs and shit, right?”

“Why not?” Jason asked.

Stephanie looked at him like he was crazy. “Okay, A., that’s called an employees only sign—like, a dozen of them, and B., we’re not on like, a school field trip or something. They’re probably take someone back there who was like, an intern or shadowing or something, but we’re not here for that.”

“How can I be an intern or a shadow?” Jason asked immediately.

“Wow, you really like fish,” Steph murmured, then said, “You have to submit forms and shit. I think they have some towards the front?”

“Forms of what?”

There went that look again. “Paper forms? You know, you write on them, hand them in, and then never hear back except perhaps the ‘we’re looking for someone else, sorry’ type of phone response?”

She laughed a little, admitting, “Okay, sometimes people get in, but they’re not usually from around here. They’re like, big college graduates and shit.”

Jason frowned. He knew with certainty he wasn’t one of the ‘big college graduates’ and that he also didn’t know how to write to do a form. That wasn’t an option. He eyed the door, and asked, “Is it locked?”

–

A desperation had hit Tim. Now that he had enough food in his stomach, he was going crazy in this tiny space. He’d investigated every inch of it, even risking going close to the surface.

He had to get out, and he had to get out now.

He’d surmised that he could shoot up out of the water and onto the surface if he swam with enough force—as far as he could tell, there was enough room to build momentum, if only barely. And when he got on the surface, he’d have to hold his breath for as long as he could, which was perhaps a half an hour at best, and struggle his way to the beach.

He wasn’t sure how far away the beach was, but he couldn’t take it anymore. He had to try.

So he popped his head partway out of the water, taking in the scene.

A couple of humans in white were looking at him, but they didn’t seem to guess what he was up to. Instead, one, a female in a weird contraption, spoke in human noises to the other, noises that Tim couldn’t possibly decipher at this time, and the other was a male who was watching him but not moving to do anything.

So Tim sank back down, confident he could get past the two.

And then he swam with all his might.

The shrieks of surprise and shock were like music to his ears even as the surface scraped up his hands and torso on landing on it. A spray of water hit him and the humans, who were running now.

The male came too close, so he smacked him into the box of water with his tail. Then he swiftly began his crawl towards what appeared to be the nearest opening.

The female was moving too, so he slapped her back with his tail as well. It sent her skidding towards the water, but not in—his tail sort of hurt, and he knew he was at least bleeding a little from his hands and likely his torso. 

The humans opened the thing he’d been sure was an opening, and he launched himself from the ground—faster than they’d expected, clearly, from the yells and the way they tried to close the opening—but he was in it now. 

It was now a flurry of human bodies, and Tim found he had his hands full pushing them away with both hands and tail.

Biting one of them seemed to clear the area much better, however, as the unfortunate human screamed.

There were flashing red lights now, and Tim hated them immediately, snarling at the humans and thrashing out more violently than before. The lights hurt his eyes, making them burn and water in a way that was incredibly inconvenient for trying to see where he was going.

His entire arm scraped up against something rough, throbbing in pain. He knew he could hold his breath for a long time more, so he kept pressing forward, and using the tilting incline to his advantage, rolling down and scraping the entirety of his body.

He could handle some scratches, he thought in time with his pulse, he could handle this.

–

Bruce’s pager was beeping like crazy. He was up and heading for his vehicle almost immediately, checking to see what he was being alerted about.

The mer had escaped its enclosure and was wreaking havok at best. They needed help recapturing him, and they didn’t know how long he would survive out of the water.

He cursed and rushed out the door, barely registering Damian shouting after him to ask where he was going.

“The Aquarium,” he shouted back, as he slammed the front door shut.

He had a fish to save—from itself, apparently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figure that mer skin would be sensitive to rough surfaces like concrete can be. 
> 
> Also, red flashing lights are terrible, but I figure that mer eyes are extra sensitive.
> 
> I hope y'all enjoyed the chapter!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim's escape doesn't go so well.
> 
> Steph doesn't get why Jason is so weird.

Damian was furious. His father had brushed him off once again to race off to his fish, and while Damian knew enough to know that the pager meant there was an emergency, he was still spitting mad.

He couldn’t quite reason out the feeling, but it was more than enough to have him angrily paying bus fare and angrily riding the bus to the aquarium. It felt like no time at all, though Damian also knew it wasn’t a terribly long trip.

The aquarium looked annoyingly normal from the outside. No signs of alarm or anything.

He walked in past the front door to the usual cheery aquarium background noises and the soft blue light. He stormed past it and towards the employee entrance.

There were two kids in the way, both taller than him.

“Get out of my way!” he snapped at them.

“Hey! What the hell?” the girl demanded. “You can’t even go back there, you’re like, 10!”

“I am 12, thank you,” Damian responded, shoving the door open. “And I work here.”

It was a stupid lie, but almost the truth.

“If you work here,” said the boy, “Can you take me back there to shadow? I was supposed to do that today.”

“No, get someone else,” Damian snarled, “I have no time.”

Father would hear his wrath.

–

Tim scrabbled along the scratchy surface, having already tumbled down the gentle slope. Now, unfortunately, it seemed he had to fight his way up another gentle slope. And frankly, Tim was not used to functioning on the surface in this way.

His body felt so inordinately heavy on land, and it was a burning fight to get up the slope. His arms were scratched to hell and back, and he could feel the stinging in his tail as he used it to push. He was strong enough to do this, but it was hard and it hurt.

The humans were getting the idea to give him space, which was good. He wasn’t sure how far he would have to go, and he didn’t want to waste time fighting them. It was also quite hard with the flashing lights to get a look at how far he had to go; his eyes ran with tears, a thing that didn’t often happen. Most often, his eyes were already in the water and had no need to worry about irritation or dryness like this.

As far as he could tell, he was getting nearer to a bend, once he’d reached the top of the slope.

And then there was a human, voice booming, and there was some sort of hook, hard and metal, pulling him by his shoulder back the way he’d come.

His blood felt like it was boiling under his skin as he started to thrash as hard as he could, peeling his eyes open as best as he could to see what was happening. Damn the red lights!

He could feel some humans get smacked against the wall, and he could only think, with a giddy relief that that was one less humans that might try to grab him again.

Then they pinned his tail, somehow, something metal and hard again pinning it to the scratchy ground.

The humans were yelling frantically at each other; they thought they had him.

He hissed at them, trying to bite and gnash his teeth, trying to puff up his chest and make his body look bigger and scarier.

They got his other shoulder next, and Tim bucked forward desperately, unable to successfully escape all the restraints. His head was starting to feel a little fuzzy, and his gills were starting to flare, even though he wasn’t old enough for it to mean much.

They threw a net over him, entrapping him.

He panicked at that point, hating the net more than anything, and thrashed hard enough that it felt like the metal hooks were going to tear off his shoulders.

A human got too close, making weird noises, and he bit it, digging into its leg and refusing to let go.

The human was not screaming, but he was yelling, and trying to pry Tim off. The others were trying to help, and a couple managed to cut their fingers on some of his exposed teeth. Tim refused to let go still, though.

An adolescent voice cut through the noise at that time, and then there was the prick of them stabbing him in his neck.

He swiftly found himself blacking out.

–

“That kid was so full of shit,” Stephanie said, rolling her eyes. He looked vaguely familiar; she wasn’t sure if he maybe lived a couple blocks over or what.

He looked kinda like that weird guy who forgot to take out his trash all the time. 

But now Jason was looking at her seriously, asking, “If they had really big...fish, where would they keep them?” 

And like, weird. What did he want a big fish for? Stephanie would’ve given him the benefit of the doubt if she’d ever had the impression that he just liked to look at fish. But like, he had barely glanced at all the fish in the tanks they’d passed.

And as bored as Steph was, she wasn’t blind to how weird all of them were. Their clothes didn’t quite match and looked like they were all gotten at one of the surf shops that sold overpriced shit to tourists. Cass was even wearing one of their straw, floppy hats that looked like it would come undone in a week or so.

They also kinda talked funny.

“Why? You a fish-fucker?” Stephanie teased.

Jason looked at her like she was crazy. “No. I’m just looking for the big fish; the small ones are boring.”

“Suuure. Well, let’s fulfill that kink from a safe and kept to yourself distance, okay? The big fish are like, half inside, half outside,” Steph explained.

The really big fish were in outdoor tanks, though a lot of them were temporary-- they were trying to rehabilitate them, in most cases. Steph was pretty sure they’d even had an orca once. And the just kinda big fish were in tanks not far from that area, in another wing of the building.

Jason looked annoyed, but followed her.

He was really weird.

They got to an exhibit of tuna fish first, and he impatiently looked them over. It was like he was looking for a specific fish, and none of them were it.

“Are there any unusual fish here?”

“What, like ones that are attracted to humans?”

The joke seemed to bounce off harmlessly. Jason shook his head, saying, “No, I mean, fish that wouldn’t normally be here.”

“Well, they had an orca a while back, but I don’t think an orca is technically a fish?”

Jason just looked annoyed. 

“Did this fish break up with you?” Steph asked with mock sympathy. “Cause if she hasn’t called back, she probably doesn’t want to see you again. Sorry.”

“Where are Cass and Dick?” Jason said shortly. “I’ve wasted enough of my fucking time.”

“Wow. Rude,” Stephanie responded, though in honesty, she was a bit stunned. Jason had been nothing but rude, and she didn’t understand why he seemed so goddamn tense about an aquarium.

“Never mind, I’ll find them.” And he stormed off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steph's not trying to be mean, but she has no idea Jason's looking for his little brother.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian finds out. However, how much longer there will be a merboy to know about is debatable.

Bruce was less than pleased about just about everything.

The merboy was hurt, and how seriously was hard to tell. He would regain consciousness soon enough, even as he floated in the water. 

They’d had to fish Barry out of the tank, and Barbara had nearly been thrown in as well. Quite a few other members of his staff were injured by the merboy, something Bruce should have realized was a serious risk; there was a lot of muscle packed into the fish-like body of the creature, and it wouldn’t have the understanding to know not to bite them or hurt them.

And Damian had come far too close to being harmed in all of this, and now demanded to know what was going on and what the merboy was.

Oh, and Bruce had been bitten, and was in the midst of getting the bite cleaned. No one knew what could be in the merboy’s bite, whether germs or actual poison. They’d sent swabs from his mouth to their lab post-haste, before they’d sent him back into the tank.

“Father, what’s going on here? Was that a—a--” Damian seemed to stumble over the word ‘mermaid.’

“Yes, it’s a mermaid—though we think this one’s actually male,” Bruce said, sighing and wincing as the bite was cleaned. 

“How would you know?!” Damian demanded, focusing on that detail first, apparently. His voice was slightly more high-pitched than usual, and Bruce got the sense that he was freaking out.

“Damian, breathe,” Bruce counseled, as the bite was bandaged up. “Everything’s going to be okay. As far as we can tell, the merboy just panicked, but we’ve got him safe back in the water, and no one is seriously injured.”

“You are!” Damian snapped at him incredulously. 

“It’s just a bite, and it’ll heal just fine,” Bruce insisted. “We’re putting a cover over the top of the tank so he can’t do that again—I don’t know yet how hurt he is.”

Damian groaned at him and stomped over towards the tank. Bruce watched him stare down through wire mesh at the still sleeping merboy, and was relieved when Damian did nothing but glare. 

“You can’t blame him,” Bruce said, “He’s a wild animal. You can’t expect him to feel safe or comfortable with what we’re doing.”

Damian said nothing. Bruce hoped it was because he was so shocked by events, and not because he was angry with him. However, he would have to wait and see.

–

Jason was agitated. This was easy to see, and Cass knew she had better see what he had to say. 

“We need to go back behind the doors,” Jason said, voice low. “I think they might still have Tim here—I don’t know for sure, but I bet we can find him and however they made this thing.”

Dick’s eyes widened. “If he was here, and alive, don’t you think he’d call out to us?”

“No,” Jason responded sharply, like he had to cut off any attacks on his hope, “Tim’s probably tired, or hurt, or something else. Or maybe we can’t hear him.”

“That...could be possible,” Cass had to concede. The walls here were thick, and even an adolescent’s call might not come through them. It traveled significantly better in water than on land as it was, after all.

Dick seemed pensive, but instead of dismissing the idea, he said, “Okay. How do we get back there? Can we just walk there?”

“We’ll probably get spotted fast,” Jason said, “You’re supposed to be someone who works here, or ‘shadowing’ if you go back there, none of which we are.”

Cass was thoughtful. If these humans were like any other creatures that moved during the day, they’d be less on their guard as night came on. It was past midday now, and it might be possible to scope it out until they were sure the humans would be tired.

“If we hide here,” Cass said, “Wait until they’re tired, we’ll have a better chance of getting in and finding him.”

Jason looked grateful. “Okay. How long?”

It was about then that Stephanie showed up, forehead creased, as she said, “So, is there any particular reason you guys are looking for a giant fish or is it just Jason being nuts?”

“We like fish,” Cass responded.

“Yeah,” Dick backed her up, “In fact, we were thinking we might stay here a while longer.”

“Okay, I don’t normally tell people this, but you guys are like, really weird,” Stephanie informed them. “Are you going to kidnap a fish or something?”

To some extent, she had caught on. Cass glanced over at Jason, seeing the tense set of his shoulders, and guessed that his interactions with Stephanie had been less than smooth. She smiled at Stephanie, laughing a little. “No, of course not.”

Humans found laughing very reassuring.

She wasn’t sure Stephanie did, though, from the expression on her face.

–

Tim came awake with a whimper. All of his pains struck him, his skin torn up, his gills burning, and his tail and shoulder throbbing with pain. He wasn’t sure if he might have broken something; either way, it was not good news.

He was never getting out of here. They’d kill him before they let that happen.

He sank himself to the bottom of the box, curling up in the corner as tight as he could go, tail tucked up close to his face. He wouldn’t allow himself self-pity, but even he had to know when he was beaten. He was going to die here.

Maybe even tonight.

He was in so much pain—his head throbbed helpfully, and he wondered if and when he’d cracked it against the scratchy surface. 

He wished literally anyone he knew was here. It didn’t even have to be his family—anyone from his pod would do. They would take care of him, not let him die in the bottom of dingy, terrible box. He wished he weren’t alone.

Dying wasn’t the worst, after all—it was dying alone that made him want to start keening again, plead with one of them to somehow hear him.

He just curled tighter. At least he could hold himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's so short! It's been hard to update anything lately. Merry Christmas, I guess! Or whatever holiday!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cavalry has arrived!

It was like a sixth sense, something that Jason couldn’t have described adequately if he tried. It was like his heart had tried to flip over, a pain coming into it that told him something had to happen _right now._

He could only think it must be Tim.

Completely ignoring Stephanie, he stalked back to the doors.

Cass and Dick immediately followed him, like they understood how urgent this felt. Like they knew. Stephanie trailed after uncertainly.

“That’s not--” Stephanie started, but the slam of the doors cut off whatever she was going to say.

They were going back there, whether the humans liked it or not.

–

“Something’s wrong,” Barbara said suddenly, distracting Bruce from what he had been doing.

He limped over quickly, looking at her screen. 

“His heartbeat’s all over the place, and his breathing seems wrong, somehow,” Barbara said. Their monitoring device was only so helpful, since they didn’t know for sure how a mer was supposed to be, but the merboy’s had definitely changed.

Bruce cursed under his breath, and said, “Any other signs of trauma?”

“He’s curled at the bottom,” Barry announced. “I think he’s seriously hurt.”

There wasn’t exactly a procedure for this exact scenario, so Bruce had to think fast. “Okay. We’re going to have to get him out of there and into one of the examination tubs—then we can try to treat whatever’s wrong.”

The cover to the tank was carefully eased back, but even Bruce could see how difficult it was going to be to try to get him out. He was in literally the most difficult place he could be.

“Come on,” Bruce murmured, trying to turn their device to accommodate the corner and the depth.

It was then there was a loud sound.

–

They had him. That device was the same, Cass saw, and that meant it must be Tim down in the water.

She rushed forward, but several of the humans also rushed forward to stop them.

Jason barreled through them; she hadn’t seen him quite like this before, but he was clearly powered by rage—and fear. Their devices were beeping, and Tim had yet to make a sound.

Jason dove into the water as the man with the catching device yelled at him that it was dangerous.

–

He found Tim curled at the bottom; he could vaguely hear his heartbeat through the water, though his hearing was terrible in this form. He wrapped his arms around his little brother, who first twitched and started to pull away before clearly recognizing his scent.

His blue eyes opened, and Jason could see there were bleary and red-rimmed, even with the limited vision he had. The rest of Tim also looked like hell, but he could survive. He gave him a gentle tug towards up, and Tim obligingly swished his tail, clinging to Jason with his arms.

He was holding very tightly as they broke the surface, and then came the damned human with his yelling, saying that they had to get them apart before the young man got hurt. 

Jason could make out Dick and Cass yelling back in the background, so he left it to them. He was just high enough that he could breathe, but so could Tim, gills just under the surface. He’d tucked his head in under Jason’s chin, like he couldn’t possibly get close enough.

The thing about being in human form was that Jason could make himself understood to fellow mer where a regular human could not. And now he murmured to Tim that it was time to transform.

But Tim wasn’t doing it. He stayed tucked close instead, entire body trembling as Jason held them up by holding to the wall.

Was he too weak? Was he too hurt? Jason didn’t know, but he still murmured to him again, insisting he had to do it.

With how young he was, he knew Tim had made the transition perhaps once, and definitely not under stressful conditions like this. It seemed almost like he would rather be held until he--

No. They were transitioning, now.

“Match my breathing,” he murmured to Tim. “Do it.”

Tim seemed almost grudging, matching the slow breaths that Jason was making. His gills bubbled this close to the surface, and Jason could see the way they were terribly scratched up and raw. It almost made him wince, but he had to focus.

He kept breathing, slowly in and out. 

Then they slowly sunk down, where Jason couldn’t breathe but Tim could. It was up to Tim now, and Jason hoped he remembered enough to know how to do it. 

–

“We have to get him out of there! It’s a dangerous animal--” Bruce insisted to the two teens.

The girl insisted, however, “He’s safe. Stay away from him.”

The other boy had picked up a fire extinguisher, and clearly was prepared to use it as a club. “He’s not an animal! You’re the animals!”

The words came out as almost a snarl, stunning Bruce. The rage was astonishing coming from a badly-dressed teenage boy over an animal he couldn’t possibly know. But it was there nonetheless, and so Bruce said,

“I apologize. He’s wounded several of my people, and I don’t want your friend to be harmed--”

He thought he saw the girl’s face move. But instead, she simply said, “He’s safe. Stay where you are.”

“Um, guys?” the blonde girl, who’d seemed pretty confused the whole time, suddenly spoke. “What the hell is going on?”

“It’s okay, Stephanie,” the other girl assured her, face almost unnaturally calm.

“That’s not very reassuring,” Stephanie responded.

Bruce started to step towards the tank, intending to at least get close enough to make sure the young man wasn’t being drowned. But the other boy snarled at him, making as if he would come at him with the fire extinguisher, and so he hung back helplessly.

–

Tim was clearly having difficulty, this much Jason could tell. He was fortunate that he could hold his breath longer than most humans, because he was certain he would be risking drowning otherwise. He kept trying to keep him focused, calm, because if Tim started freaking out he wasn’t going to transition.

He also had the unnatural shape of this water working against him. Walking up to shore significantly made it easier to transition, but there was no walking up the wall of this box.

But he was breathing at the right pace, and his eyes were closed as he tried to focus. He was trying, and that was all Jason could ask for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is short. I hope to wrap this up in a chapter or two.

**Author's Note:**

> Kinda had this idea for a while, felt like writing it today! Hope y'all enjoyed it, and expect more at some point.


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